Transcript of testimony by Shelley Berkley to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, September 19, 2000 (5 pages)

The Honorable Shelley Berkley Testimony - Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (in Las Vegas) September 19, 2000 (Telephonically) Good Afternoon. I would like to thank the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and it's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste for the opportunity to offer my testimony by telephone. I would rather be with you in person, but as you know, Congress is in session. It is my understanding that the Committee and the NRC staff will be discussing how to handle an application from the Department of Energy to build and operate a high level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. I am also informed that tomorrow the Committee will discuss the so-called "progress" at the Yucca Mountain site, focusing on a DOE site recommendation report and performance assessment. With all due respect to all concerned, I must say that the work of the Commission and the Committee should be directed in an entirely different direction. Instead continuing the Yucca Mountain Project, I urge that you begin to shut it down. The dangers of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository are now so well-known and so well-documented that it is folly to continue the project, and dump additional billions of dollars literally into a hole in the ground. Long ago, the Yucca Mountain Project reached the stage that the only way it could be kept alive was to undermine the safety provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The calculated erosion of these provisions has kept the project on life-support for years. It is now time to pull the plug, so the nation may move on to consider safe and effective strategies to solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal. On three separate occasions the State of Nevada has demonstrated, using DOE's own data, that the site should be disqualified under both the EPA standard and DOE's own internal site screening regulation. And each time, the DOE or Congress has changed the regulations to ensure that Yucca Mountain would not be disqualified, regardless of the health and safety consequences to Nevadans. 2 In fact, DOE has found the geology at Yucca Mountain so poor that over 95% of the waste isolation capability of the proposed repository would have to be provided by metal waste container, with only about 5% of the site's waste isolation performance depending on the natural conditions. When this project started, the idea was find a place with natural geologic features to contain the radiation. Clearly, this objective has failed. And if that were not enough, an aquifer flows beneath Yucca Mountain, with water moving so rapidly that even with all the engineered barriers, radiation will unavoidably escape from the repository and contaminate the water flow. The discovery of water migrating through the mountain is cause alone to abandon it. Additionally, Yucca Mountain is located in a young geologically active area, with 4 volcanoes within 7 miles of the site. Yucca Mountain is surrounded by 34 known earthquake fault lines, and has experienced over 620 earthquakes in the last 20 years. One of these earthquakes measured a 5.9 on the Richter Scale and caused over a million dollars in damage to DOE's own surface support facilities. 3 Recently, I testified before a House subcommittee to urge that radiation exposure standards not be relaxed to fit the needs of the Yucca Mountain Project. It was shocking to listen to experts debate this issue, with some of them actually advocating the abandonment of established safety standards....not for the Untied States as a whole...but only at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In other words, my constituents would be the only people in this country living in and area where the stringent standards of the environmental Protection agency do not apply. I firmly believe this is driven strictly by politics. We have reached the point where the scientific process itself is being compromised by political expediency. I again request that federal agencies change course. Instead of trying to change the rules to keep the Yucca Mountain Project alive, they should begin the process of decommissioning the Yucca Mountain Project. 4 Finally, when discussing a high-level nuclear waste repository, we must also address the transportation concerns that arise from the prospect of hauling 100,000 tons of lethal waste across 43 states. It is irresponsible that we would jeopardize the lives of men, women and children living along the routes the waste would travel on our nation's highways without trying to find a safe alternative. I have faith in the technological advancements our nation has experienced in the past few decades and the advancements in our future. The NRC has stated that nuclear waste can be safely stored in its current containers for another 100 years. I have full confidence in our scientific community that we they can develop an alternative where we do not have to dump 100,000 tons of toxic materials into our earth. The bottom line is that the Yucca Mountain Project is a failed one. We need to invest in our future, and the future of generations to come, and work together to find a responsible and safe solution. Thank you. 5